Expert panelists preview The Christian Post's 'Unmasking Gender Ideology II' conference in DC
Panelists participating in The Christian Post's "Unmasking Gender Ideology II" conference Sunday night said they hope they can shine a light on the spiritual and legal dangers that the encroaching ideology poses.
The second conference of its type hosted by CP is taking place at Burke Community Church in Burke, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., at 5 p.m., and will feature several experts who will weigh in on the havoc that transgenderism has wrought on countless children, young adults, families, other vulnerable people and on society.
'An uphill battle'
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One expert is Andrea Picciotti-Bayer, a Stanford-educated lawyer who serves as director of the Conscience Project.
Picciotti-Bayer told CP she intends to speak about her role in defending religious freedom and countering the threat that trans ideology poses to people of faith as it seeps into social services, particularly foster care and adoption.
She said roadblocks are being set up that affect the ability of Christian parents to participate.
"For example, agreeing to use preferred pronouns for a hypothetical child who someday might manifest a gender identity different than their biological sex, or agreeing to bring a child to a gay rights parade or LGBTQ+ parade, agreeing to bring a child for medical interventions like puberty blockers or hormone treatments," she said.
"Oftentimes, it's in the case of a hypothetical child, not even a specific child and what their needs are, and that is used as a litmus test for who gets to serve kids and who doesn't."
She also said such precedents could even pose a risk even to parents who don't affirm transgenderism in their biological children.
Picciotti-Bayer also plans to touch on medical conscience rights, which she said is a crucial issue, especially given the large amount of money driving the medical industry.
"I think this is an issue that really deserves a considerable amount of attention, in part because there's a lot of money behind medicalizing gender ideology and turning it into something either that leads to hormonal treatments or puberty blockers or sterilizations, mastectomies, that sort of thing," she said.
Picciotti-Bayer said her Christian faith enables her to have hope, but conceded that opposing forces are strong.
"As a believer, there's always hope," she said regarding whether she's optimistic that the tide can be turned.
"But I think it's going to be an uphill battle," she added.
'Satan's taken over'
Among the panelists is Bill Mahoney, a father featured in the 2022 documentary "Dead Name" and whose cancer-stricken son, Sean, became ensnared by the affirmation-only model before he died at age 22.
As recounted in the documentary, Sean began to transition while a freshman at Rochester Institute of Technology and a therapist told Bill that he was "an unsupportive, abusive father" for not affirming his son's trans identity.
Despite an endocrinologist telling the family that taking cross-sex hormones could kill Sean because of his stage 4 colon cancer, he began to exhibit otherwise inexplicable physical changes shortly before his death.
Mahoney told CP that his motivation for participating in the conference is to raise awareness about the negative impacts of such a model on families.
"I like doing things where I can talk to other parents and get the word out, because so many people don't believe this is going on," he said. "I don't want another family to go through what I had to go through."
Mahoney said he hopes to "make sure people are aware that this really is happening, and that they're aware the affirmative model is a flawed model."
He also discerned an unmistakably demonic element to trans ideology.
"It's obvious Satan's taken over; there's no other explanation," he said of the spiritual forces behind the explosion of the movement and its support from many in power.
He singled out the Democratic Party as an especially egregious example of an institution that is enabling such suffering.
"I don't know how anybody could believe in God and be a Democrat," he said. "There's no soul in that party. Bad enough they're murdering unborn, but now they have to take it to a new level to mutilate and sterilize children."
Kingdom work in dark places
Amie Ichikawa is the founder of Woman II Woman, a California-based nonprofit that was created by formerly incarcerated women and ministers to incarcerated women.
Ichikawa, who also participated in CP's first "Unmasking Gender Ideology" event at First Baptist Dallas in Texas in 2023, told CP that she hopes her participation in the latest event will open the hearts of as many Christians as possible to the plight of women who are suffering because of laws allowing men to be housed in women's prisons.
"I really would like for them to wake up and know that they have members of the Body of Christ who are definitely suffering and being persecuted for standing firm on their Christian conservative values," she said. "They need help, they need prayer, they need all kinds of support."
Ichikawa said she "feels called to encourage Christians to get uncomfortable at this time and start having uncomfortable conversations."
She added that Christians should "get into some uncomfortable things for the greater good, because there's a lot of Kingdom work that needs to be done in really dark places, and they could use some help."
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com
